Reading in Different Ways...

Hey girls!

I decided that I'd get both my last week's blog and this week's done in one day, so ignore the fact that I'm putting both of them right after the other!...By the way, I thought our powerpoint presentation went smoothly! :)

Today in class we touched on the effect that reading in different ways might have while reading different types of literature. We worked in class with a poem about people of different color. You all will remember that we read the poem silently, Judy read the poem aloud to us, and we split the class in two and split the poems up line by line for each half of the room to read. Personally, I prefered to read this poem either silently or hear one person read it. To me, it feels distracting to take turns reading lines. I end up not really paying attention to what the poem is saying. One thing that I did think was effective about reading the poem as an entire class though was how we all read the final line together about holding hands. I think that the most meaningful way to read today's poem might be a build up of voices. One person would start by reading the first sentence, a second person would join in for the second sentence, and on and on until everyone was reading all together. Another way would be to have one person read each line individually until the last sentence, which could be read as a group.

There are so many ways to do it! I think it could be fun to do a unit on poetry and have the students each choose a poem and a way to present it to the class that they felt would fit that poem.

The Importance of Response-Centered Talk

Hey Group 4! :)

The article by McGee on response-centered talk was interesting for me to read and think critically about. In her article, McGee stresses the importance of "talk" in literacy. Talk is something that tends to be over-looked when it comes to literacy because it is not necessarily one of the first aspects of literacy that comes to mind when you think of literacy in general. In fact, talk is one of the most important aspects of literacy that we should all use within our classrooms. Talk is important to gage our students' prior information about what they will begin to read. It is important for answering questions and gaining comprehension as the literary work is being read and after it is finished.

Talk can also be used to gain knowledge of our students' personal interpretations of the texts, and connections that they might make between the text and their own lives. It is a good idea to use response-centered talk with the students in the classroom. Using response-centered talk captures and keeps the student's attention more than traditional literacy talk because it gives the students an opportunity to focus on aspects of the literature that are interesting to them. Response-centered talk is student focused and the role of the teacher is that of a guide. A teacher can learn a lot about his or her students by listening.

A talk on discussions

Hey group! So I guess it is appropriate to talk about the topic I will be discussing tomorrow which is the traditional versus the new view on discussion. Not to long ago, and even still today, teachers have a question answer format, which they consider a discussion. The teacher is the main initiator of the conversation and the student just responds by using answers that come directly from the book. I have experienced this form of discussion even in the past couple of years....at MSU they call it recitation, just like they do in the article. This never helped me learn very much. It always seemed like busy work or a waste of an hour of my life. The new view of a discussion is very similar to our discussions we have in TE. These discussions are meaningful (for the most part) and help me expand my thoughts by listening to other students viewpoints. I think it is really important as a teacher to make sure you are not leading the discussion but allowing your students to be the facilitator of interaction. When a discussion is conducted appropriately it can lead to a significant increase in understanding a story or an article, for example. Not only does discussion center around cognitive development but also addresses social growth. "Discussions of literature may be viewed as a social environment in which student can witness how group members work together to collaboratively construct meaning" (Pg. 44). Overall this article summarized how beneficial a discussion can be if it is student centered. Cognitively, socially, and emotionally, students who are engaged in a lesson will have the opportunity to grow.

1st post!

So I don't really know what to write about really, this can't be boring because no one would want to read it, and that's what we have to do every week! So, to keep it short and simple...the article I read was about instructional conversations between teachers and students, and among students themselves! I mostly was interested in the article (lots of information) about the way it was modeled...it seems as you read it that the teacher is just simply leading the students in a conversation about friends, but what she is REALLY doing is allowing them to think and discuss the complex ideas (good and bad things) about friendship. The rest of the article was simply telling what a teacher does and how an instructional conversation is structured...It was a long drawn out article with a lot of the same things repeated, but I guess overall I just learned about what a instructional conversation is....which sounds like a detailed discussion to me but they so differently! See you all tomorrow!

Well I hope this is right

Okay ladies-- first thing...I used my sister's gmail to sign in so don't pay any attn to that. I'm not too sure what we are supposed to write about, I guess our presentation tomorrow is a good start. I basically summarized the article that I read which covered the basics of how children conceptualize literature and provided a lot of new vocabulary for describing these concepts. It also listed instructional techniques...which was lacking. The only real technique that Langer addresses is prompting questions. She lists ways in which to use those questions, but I feel like that is pretty basic stuff and was hoping for more techniques. I mean they talk about literacy and how vital it is for success in every other subject, but I don't feel like they give a lot of ways to alter instruction to ensure literary success. I guess this is a semi-negative view, but I just think, what is the point of learning about all the ways that children struggle with literacy if we can't do anything about it. Alright well, I guess that is it for now...see you ladies bright and early.